This fall, I’ll start my senior year of high school. I always told myself that I would do everything I could with the college application process over the summer- write essays, print out and fill in applications, write up my resume, decide which teachers to get recommendations from… And now it’s the summer before me senior year! I actually have to do the stuff. First, though, I have to decide where to apply.

My ideas have been all over the place since I started thinking seriously about it, years ago. First, I wanted to go to a small liberal arts college- Williams, Macalester, somewhere like that. I like the small, seminar-like classes; the socially aware student body; the focus on ideas and critical thought as opposed to just making something. My mother, a big supporter of liberal arts education, always says that while other things may teach you how to make a living, the liberal arts teach you how to live.

Eventually, I realized that while I enjoyed subjects like philosophy and English, I was going to end up majoring in something more along the lines of math or physics. Thus, I began looking at technical schools. In the beginning, I was going to go to WPI, Worcester Polytech. I had lots of reasons. However, I eventually realized that WPI would be a very, very safe place for me to go. It seemed like a very sensible, very secure next step. Nothing terribly exciting. Less than an hour’s drive from my house, not especially intense academics, really good chance of getting in… nice and warm and cosy. As soon as I realized that, I realized that it wasn’t what I wanted. I’ve lived in one place my entire life, and never done anything really interesting. Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever tried as hard as I can at academics. I need to get away a bit and see what I’m really capable of. Plus, really good SAT scores and a reconsideration of extracurricular activities made me think I could get in somewhere better.

One of the big decisions I have to make is whether I want to go to a liberal arts school, a tech school, or a more general place. My thoughts about the liberal arts schools are kind of strange. I want to be well-rounded, which would be easier there, but there’s more to it. For one thing, I don’t like to write. It’s difficult for me to find the right words, and especially difficult to break out of the formulaic way of writing they teach in school. One of the reasons I have this blog is to get me to do some writing on a semi-regular basis- it’s much more formal than my livejournal. I know that it’s important to be able to write well, so part of me feels that I should go somewhere that makes me write a lot, just because I don’t want to. On the other hand, I think I could relate more to people in a tech school- with the stereotype, at least. I’m not very socially adept, and I’d much rather do problem sets than write an impassioned essay about… well… anything. Ideally, I’d want a school specializing in the sciences with a pretty good humanities program.

Here, crossposted from my livejournal, is a list of the places I’m planning to apply to- at this point:

I think (hope?) that I’ve decided which colleges to apply to. I’ll probably change my mind again, but this is the first time I’ve actually had a “final” list.

- UMass Amherst, the ultimate safety school. I don’t want to go, but I don’t mind of everyone else rejects me. Almost everyone in my school applies there (one reason I don’t want to go).
- Worcester Polytech, kind of a not-quite-safety school. Very confident in my ability to get in, but something could go wrong. Also, I’d probably end up with more scholarships there than anywhere else, so it’ll be cheaper if I decide money is the most important thing.
- Rensselaer Polytech, pretty good tech school. I like it. I don’t think it’s my first choice, but it’s a good school and I’d be happy with it.
- Macalester, token liberal arts school. Ultra liberal, a little far away- in Minnesota. They have a neuroscience program that looks cool.
- Carnegie Mellon, maybe my first choice. I’m not sure I want to major in computer science anymore, and that was one of the main reasons I wanted to go there- they one of the best comp sci programs in the country. They also have a good fine arts and engineering programs, but I don’t get the impression that humanities and physical sciences are quite as awesome. Still, it’s a cool place.
- University of Chicago, last minute add-in. I just started reading about it last night. Seems very good. They have way more grad students, overall, than undergrads, but the class sizes are very small and TA’s rarely teach them. The student:faculty ratio is 4:1. That’s amazing. And a lot of the classes are taught in seminar form, which is great.

I like small classes. That’s one of my concerns about RPI- most classes have something like 30-40 students.

So, that’s the list for now. I might throw in somewhere like Stanford for the hell of it, but I probably won’t. I like these, I think I have a good variety and I have a chance at getting into all of them.